Jedrington Secret-Past has a successful business until a sinister lawyer tells him he owes a debt and throws his family into prison. What is behind the sinister plan? Will Jedrington rescue his family in time for Christmas? And is there more to the name of Secret-Past than meets the eye? All will be revealed in a tale of hidden wills, brave urchins, giant clocks, misery, joy and treacle.

Jedrington teams up with a charming new business partner, but is he all he seems, or is he actually massively evil? And what is the awful secret behind the cryptic letter that has disturbed Jedrington's wife so greatly that she has made her way to End-It-All Dock? As the Secret-Past family's fortunes rise and rise it turns out that the foundations of their happiness are far from sound.

Stricken with grief at the apparent death of his wife, Jedrington begins to question the morality of his business empire until on Easter Eve he is visited by three terrifying ghostly rabbits. Meanwhile at the hands of the governess and headmaster of St Nasty's the Secret-Past children suffer the worst extremes of Victorian education until Victor goes missing in a suspicious accident.